Teaching German

NetzDG's torrid first week

German satire magazine Titanic back on Twitter following 'hate speech' ban

German satirical news outlet Titanic has had its Twitter account reinstated after it was suspended for more than two days. Tweets parodying an AfD lawmaker were flagged and deleted under Germany's new "NetzDG" law.

The Twitter account of Titanic, a German satirical magazine, went back online Friday after it had been suspended for more than 48 hours for violating hate speech rules.

In a press statement, Titanic's chief editor Tim Wolff said he was glad that Twitter had settled the issue "so bureaucratically and slowly," and that the paper would again have "the chance to take Twitter to task from our own account."

Titanic's account was suspended on Tuesday for a series of tweets by an imagined Beatrix von Storch, the deputy parliamentary group leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — shortly after the politician was suspended from Twitter. "Her" tweets from Titanic included a joke about watching the world darts championship final on Monday night: "White men getting drunk and shooting stuff, a last bastion of our Germanic traditions."

The AfD lawmaker responded to the tweet, posting: "What the hell is happening in this country? Why is an official police site tweeting in Arabic? Do you think it is to appease the barbaric, gang-raping hordes of Muslim men?"

Under the law, websites such as Facebook and Twitter must quickly review and, if necessary, delete any flagged content. Any content found to be "evidently illegal" must be removed within 24 hours, while less clear-cut cases must be resolved within a week. Failure to do so can see the site in question slapped with particularly steep fines.

This week's debacle saw both the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) and the AfD accuse the new law of stoking censorship. Sites like Twitter will "in an uncertain scenario opt against freedom of expression" to avoid a financial fine, said BDZV Managing Director Dietmar Wolff.

In the meantime, Titanic's new "guest tweeter" was Alexander Dobrindt, a member of the Bavarian Christian Social Union and former Minister for Transport. In picking Dobrindt, who had just published his seven guidelines for a "conservative revolution" in German weekly Die Zeit, Titanic appeared to choose as conservative a politician as they could find who wasn't affiliated with the AfD.

On Friday, "he" admitted on Titanic's Twitter that he was high on drugs during a television interview this week.

Also on Friday, Twitter released a statement explaining why accounts belonging to prominent world leaders would enjoy a special status and less likely be banned or suspended.

In a post on its corporate blog, the social network said: "Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate."

The remarks came amid calls that US President Donald Trump's account be blocked for violating the microblogging site's ban on violent threats. The debate of Trump's use of social media came to the fore once again on Wednesday, after he tweeted that he had a "much bigger" and "more powerful" nuclear button than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Last month, Twitter vowed to impose new rules aimed at combating "hateful" and "abusive" content, such as messages promoting violence. That policy came on the back of global public pressure, and is separate from Germany's NetzDG law.